Laurie Garrett, Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations, explores the lasting impact of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and the anthrax attacks that followed on disaster preparedness and health policy in the United States. Garrett argues that "all our readiness response depends on well-funded police, well-funded fire departments, well-funded hospitals, well-funded public health infrastructures, and precisely the opposite is where we are going right now." Garrett cautions that U.S. preparedness for a major terrorist attack may be decreasing. "As budgets are being cut at the federal level, the state level, and the local level, we’re actually less ready than we were in 2001," Garret says.

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The president’s first national security strategy eloquently sums up the U.S. role in the world and what should be done to defend it, but much of the document is at odds with what the president himself believes.

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In addition to a sharp economic downturn, Venezuela faces a humanitarian crisis. The United States can do little to prevent a downward spiral, but it should take measures to mitigate the political, economic, and humanitarian consequences of a potential mass emigration.